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Bits from Walt Perrin Interview, 6/13

How much input will Quin Snyder have on who you draft?
The final decision will actually be with Dennis [Lindsey]. It helps that we now know who our head coach is and who he, who, the type of players he likes and dislikes.

He won’t have a o–a major decision in the, or excuse me, a major, oh, yeah, in the decision of what we’re gonna make. Again, that’s gonna be totally up to Dennis, but he will have an input.

What qualities in player interviews indicate to you you’ve got the right guy for your team?
Well, we’re looking for sincerity. We’re looking for guys who’s, who are humble but have confidence in their ability.

We look for guys who have, who are truthful in their answers, because we do a lot of background and we know a lot about these kids before they even sit down for the interview process.

We look for guys who look you right in the eye and give you an answer. We look for guys who are somewhat articulate in their answers. They don’t have to be a Shane Battier or anything like that, but we look, we want guys who are fairly articulate and who think clearly and can process some things that we ask in question.

Has there been a time when you had a feeling about a guy but didn’t act on it and later just wanted to kick yourself for it?
You can always look back at the mistakes that you–well, I shouldn’t say–“missteps”* that you have taken in terms of drafting.

Just off the top of my head, I know, you know, here, when I, one of the first years I got here with the draft when Kevin [O’Connor] was here, he asked me about a player named Dwyane Wade…and whether we [should] move up for him and move one of our players to pick him in the draft.

And I said unequivocally yes because I saw him put his team on his shoulders and beat Kentucky in one of the regional finals. I said, yeah, if we can move up to get at him, grab him right away. We had something in the works. It just fell through at the last minute.

Now, we still wouldn’t have been able to draft him because Miami would have taken him before we woulda had the pick.** But he’s the one guy that I told Kevin that, you know, let’s do whatever we can to try to move up to get him.

* Because the Jazz “don’t do mistakes.”
** Miami took Wade with the fifth pick of the 2003 draft. The Jazz ended up drafting Sasha Pavlovic with 19th pick.

What happened the night you elected to take Deron Williams over Chris Paul?
Well, you know, Kevin did a great job that year of talking with Portland about trying to move up, and Charlotte was also trying to move up at that particular time.

And he, and Kevin had numerous conversations with the GM in Portland, and we weren’t sure whether or not we were gonna be able to move up versus Charlotte, because Charlotte was able to, they had a pretty good package that they were gonna put together to move up to take, we thought, we weren’t sure if it was gonna be Deron Williams or if it was gonna be Chris Paul.

So it came down to the last day, just before the draft, do–excuse me, the morning of the draft, and Kevin and I sat down and talked about it. And we talked about, well, let’s add to the package and see if Portland would take it, not, knowing that Charlotte wouldn’t know what we would be giving. And as it was, we, you know, we gave up three first rounds to move up to get Deron, and I think Charlotte was giving up two first round picks.

So, that w–during the draft, again, Kevin did a tremendous job of staying in contact with the Portland GM, Bob Nash, or ch–no, excuse me, I think it was Nash, John Nash, and having constant conversations with him to be able to, you know, on draft day, pull that off.

Do you prefer players who come from winning teams with successful coaches?
Yes, it is something we look at. But see, with, you know, you have to understand most of the good players are all on winning programs anyway, so it’s a natural to gravitate to looking at those type players. But you want guys who have a winning attitude, not only on the court, but also off the court.

And if you can find those and get ’em and they wanna work hard and they wanna get better, they’re gonna really become very good players.

Now, if you’re looking at guys who are on losing programs, they may be, they may come in with a defeatist attitude, and now you’ve got not only to work on their basketball skills, you gotta work on their mental skills also. Mental abilities in terms of trying to be a winner instead of thinking that they’ve always been losers. (1280)